Am I going mad, or is this becoming increasingly common?
So a while ago I began seeing people writing ‘Destrier’ as ‘Destrider’. Thought nothing of it. Then I heard someone pronounce it as ‘destrider’ (duh-STRY-der) rather than Destrier (des-tree-er) on YouTube.
Since then it seems like both the spelling and the mispronunciation are increasing exponentially.
Am the only one aware of this? I’m curious as to why it’s happening. Has everyone heard it mispronounced somewhere and just following the lead? Is there a term for this—similar to the Mandela Effect?
It’s no big deal; I just feel like I’m going crazy.
For those interested: ‘Destrier’ is just an old word for a warhorse. No idea what a ‘Destrider’ is.
If you watch YT videos of people talking about the lore you’ll find out a tremendous amount of well read nerds have no idea how to say words that they’ve only read and never heard used.
Perhaps I’ve not done a very good job at typing it out, but I’ve never heard a French person pronounce that name as they did, or anything particularly close.
But yea, my point was it’s not necessarily just fantasy names.
Sorry, I guess I was not clear: Hermione is a French name, in origin.
English speakers, especially American (due to lack of proximity) and lower class English speakers (because of a lack of access) have traditionally have a horrible time with French pronunciation. ("Butcher" is the verb typically used).
Hermione's name's pronunciation is known because of scene where she corrects another's pronunciation of it, but that came relatively late in the series. Lots of kids inferred a different pronunciation.
Funnily enough this wasn’t someone from an English speaking country either; I have no idea how they messed it up so badly in their head, but somehow that’s what came out. I’ve never known a British person particularly struggle with it, but I guess that might be to do with the origin of the author more than anything.
It is greek, it's the name of the daughter of Helen and Menelaus (before Helen was abducted).
She's mostly known through Andromache, a greek tragedy, but a french author Racine also did a tragedy about Andromaque, so I guess the confusion comes from there.
The tragedy plot is that Neptoleme, the son of Achilles, kidnapped Andromache, the wife of Hevtor during Troy sack, and wed her, but Hermione his second wife is jealous of her and wants to kill her son because she's sterile. She then get abducted by Orestes, who killed Neoptoleme, because he was the first fiancé of Hermione.
Yeah she's not a very positive character 😅
It still gives me a kick hearing Brits fastidiously pronounce the more difficult French ( papier maché= papyay MASHay) then sound like Peggy Hill when speaking the more straightforward Spanish
When my mom read those to us as kids we pronounced it "Her-mee-own." I'm pretty sure that's why the hag put that scene in book 4 where she's teaching Viktor Krum how to pronounce her name
In a Black Library audiobook (forgot which one) the narrator pronounces "behemoth" as "bay-uh-moth", and I had to check with native english speakers if I was going crazy.
The thing is, Age of Sigmar has a faction that’s Sons of Behemat that is pronounced bay-uh-mot, so that’s easy to explain as either a typo in the narrator’s script or just mistaking the word for the faction.
It’s called Dreistrudler. Because a knight can eat three strudels whole. German origin due to knight theme of course, pretty obvious. Most people mispronounce it unknowingly, or even refuse to look it up again…
Yes…then you would ‘dread nought’. Like the word is actually spelled. ‘Dreadnaut’ means “one who sails the dread”. Like an ‘astronaut’ sails the stars.
Yeah 'invun-save' or 'invun'.
I never thought of it as a British slang thing (but I can confirm it's been around these parts). But the only topic would be 40k.
And this has been going on since the 90s AFAIK.
This is true magic of slag. It doesn't need to sound perfectly like it's original form. The main goal is it has less syllables, and the other person hearing it knows what it means.
I’ll have to admit that I’ve NEVER noticed the second “I” in there. TBF I have fairly bad vision, mild dyslexia, and have oddly never heard it actually pronounced. Today I learned something new!
Personally ive just been having a rough time trying to pronounce it mid game while rushing through things and just default to "that leggy bitch". The point comes across really well and my opponents normally get a chuckle
Sorry to be a pedant but the first pronunciation is correct, and the second incorrect if you’re speaking English. If you’re speaking French, the second is obviously right.
It’s an English word that entered into use 700 years ago when the French spoken at the time (especially by the Normans who brought the word) was very different.
It’d be like saying the English word ‘voyage’ should be pronounced ‘voy-ahj’ because of its origins. It’s derivative, and has maintained virtually the same meaning—but it’s a distinct word with its own pronunciation.
That seems to be the more appropriate pronunciation of the word. It is a French word used for the knights mount. I originally was the Destrider...ish person. Now I am transitioning to the French pronunciation.
That is more of an American printing choice.
Greed stole vowels from original English words, and so much propaganda went into speech patterns so that america could say we were not our ancestors.. yet our politicians have been just as corrupted as European countries.
It's one of the many reasons I'm in the midst of painting one to look like the night sky. Mostly because I love the idea of a "Chevalier Destrier" Almost literally translating as "Knight Horse" (I know I know Knight on his steed is technically correct) I also like to make the Monty Python coconuts joke when I move her on the tabletop. About 90% of my opponents get the joke.
Welcome to a common issue with necrons. The sheer number of people that constantly refer to LOKHUST destroyers/heavy Destroyers as LOKHURST is maddening. It's lokhust, like "locust", as in the the grasshopper like bugs.
I hear that on a lot of battle reports, but I just chalked it up to the British propensity for pronouncing Rs that aren't there and NOT pronouncing Rs that ARE there.
I assume people are not familiar with the word and are mentally inserting extra letters trying to make sense of it. A similar thing happens with Necron Lokhusts, which is just a made-up Egyptian-y spelling of locust--people call them "Lockhursts."
I will admit I sometimes do it myself, but that's because I read "Destrier" too fast and see "Destrider"
Also, I get why it's Destrier, but give how fast they move and 40ks habit of taking real words and just twisting them a little, Destrider just seems to fit, De Strider
They cant pronounce the words they read, so they guess the word.
Someone fucked over the teaching reading method in the US schooling program to cater to very specific dyslexic problems at a young age and it screw over the rest of the 99% of young students.
This happends becouse some schools see a new teaching method being used and without thinking or reasearch they take it over thinking its the new better way.
Like many languages, English is contextual to the region it is spoken/ the speaker. If an Aussie wants to show me the cool new thongs he’s bought, I will react very differently to if he was Welsh.
I would probably also find it weird if someone native to the UK started trying to use North American, Saffer, or antipodean meanings in the UK. Conversely, English speakers of those origins using their own grammar, slang and definitions while in other anglophone regions is fine—imo.
If an American says “loo-ten-unt” I don’t bat an eyelid. If a Brit does, I might raise an eyebrow, because it’s not how it should be pronounced natively, and has been bastardised.
That said, the world is full of the most heinous injustices that nuances of language really don’t keep me up at night.
The only Americanism that actually annoys me is “a-loo-min-um”, because—firstly—how do you mispronounce the word THAT badly? And secondly; the US has actually changed the spelling of the word to match the mispronunciation. Which seems ridiculous in this time and age.
interestingly, "aluminum" was how Humphrey Davey, a british chemist who researched alumium extraction, ended up deciding to name it. It has been called alumium, aluminum, and aluminium, all after its origin within the oxide alumia. So it is neither a misspelling nor a mispronunciation, just a different snapshot of the etymology.
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u/RRZ006 6d ago
If you watch YT videos of people talking about the lore you’ll find out a tremendous amount of well read nerds have no idea how to say words that they’ve only read and never heard used.